New patch 20 December

[Athmos]

There is no way to "make IZ stacking more interesting". If the optimal play is to always do it, it's always going to be uninteresting. Now they have an effective diminishing return on industrial buildings and it opens up the door to build more interesting things instead. Using hammers to make more hammers is the least interesting use of hammers there is. It's important to have methods to build up your economy, but there needs to be a point where it makes sense to actually use your economy to build other, non-hammer-related, things instead. The levels of production you got with stacking simply broke the game, I'm not sad to see it go in the slightest.

The overlap bonus only appears with factories/industrialization. So to maximize it, you have to sacrifice the efficiency of your city planning for the first half of the game, where adjacency is a far more important factor (the only one actually).
That's this tension and decision making that made it an interesting puzzle.
You cannot pretend that it "IZ stacking" was the only way to go unless you're ignoring half the game, specially as the first half is one that gives its shape to the game.
This tension between early game and late game doesn't exist anymore.
And I don't think we've played the same game if you think IZ overlap implied only ever building IZs.

 

[Magil]

the overlap bonus only appears with factories/industrialization. So to maximize it, you have to sacrifice the efficiency of your city planning for the first half of the game, where adjacency is a far more important factor (the only one actually). That's this tension and decision making that made it an interesting puzzle. This doesn't exist anymore.

This doesn't hold very much water considering the ease of rushing to Industrialization.

You also have very little to lose from tightly-packed cities early on since housing caps prevent you from fully utilizing the terrain anyway.

 

[UWHabs]

I agree whole-heartedly--but if it was me doing the change, I think I still would've included alternate buildings for the Factory/Zoo/Stadium/Power Plant, ones with non-regional effects. "Alternate" like the Barracks/Stable thing (I mentioned this in the other thread on this subject). Something that didn't give a regional bonus, but had a different local effect, maybe a "Coal Plant" or something. That'd at least help keep investing in Industrial Zones/Entertainment Complexes on a higher than "12 tiles apart" somewhat more worthwhile, especially for Civs like Brazil and Germany that have unique versions.

If not that, then at least give factories both a local and regional bonus. So maybe all factories get a local bonus equal to the adjacency of the IZ, plus a regional bonus of +3 (which each city can only get once). That way if you have a good adjacency, you can still benefit from building a factory in a city, although it certainly would be a smaller bonus if it already had the regional coverage.

 

[jollywonk]

"Most Civilization unique districts now require population to construct (like normal districts)"

Does anyone know which UD's are excepted from this? I tested the Hansa last night and it clearly counts against the limit. I haven't gone in and tested Lavra, Carnival, Royal Navy Dockyard, etc. Perhaps they are just referring to the Bath and Mbanza...of course the Civilopedia says nothing either way about any of them.

 

[Athmos]

This doesn't hold very much water considering the ease of rushing to Industrialization.

How soon does the first factory appear ? I'll check in my last game when I get home, I rushed Industrialization pretty aggressively.
But from what I remember, you still have to fight early wars and develop your civilization before then. There definitely is a trade-off in going for sub-optimal city placement (and conquered city razing) until then for optimal IZ packing in my experience. Have I been doing it wrong ?

 

[Magil]

"Most Civilization unique districts now require population to construct (like normal districts)"

Does anyone know which UD's are excepted from this? I tested the Hansa last night and it clearly counts against the limit. I haven't gone in and tested Lavra, Carnival, Royal Navy Dockyard, etc. Perhaps they are just referring to the Bath and Mbanza...of course the Civilopedia says nothing either way about any of them.

My impression is that it's only referring to the Bath and the Mbanza.

 

[need my speed]

My impression is that it's only referring to the Bath and the Mbanza.

So 'civilisation unique districts require the same amount of population as their ordinary counterpart would require'? I wonder why they couldn't just write that - but then, the entire game is riddled with 'most' and 'more' and 'a bonus' and other vague things that help nobody.

 

[Esperr]

How soon does the first factory appear ? I'll check in my last game when I get home, I rushed Industrialization pretty aggressively.
But from what I remember, you still have to fight early wars and develop your civilization before then. There definitely is a trade-off in going for sub-optimal city placement (and conquered city razing) until then for optimal IZ packing in my experience. Have I been doing it wrong ?

Spamming tight citys is all that has ever mattered because production is the only yield that matters. Its just like science in 5, farm spam and population rush are all that matter. Now theyve made the best yield that was already harder to get even more difficult, making the mid game onward slog even more then it already did. I also dont know what you consider early game, but your first factory is up by t120ish.

 

[Athmos]

Spamming tight citys is all that has ever mattered because production is the only yield that matters. Its just like science in 5, farm spam and population rush are all that matter. Now theyve made the best yield that was already harder to get even more difficult, making the mid game onward slog even more then it already did. I also dont know what you consider early game, but your first factory is up by t120ish.

I entirely agree that production dominates the game, but when placing your IZ, you can usually get +2 or +3 bonus relatively easily, from mines and quarries. This is a better production bonus than a Workshop, until industrialization, and It does speed up your build up considerably. It is not possible to get as much out of it if you are packing your cities ICS style for maximum overlap after industrialization. Geeting fresh water for housing is also an important consideration that was going against maximum packing.
I really don't have the same experience that "city placement didn't matter", actually in my experience it mattered a lot, as well as planing where to build districts, and I love that puzzle. And I'm not sure about this change because I think It will actually remove one of the aspects of that puzzle.

 

[Gicusan]

I am reading the patch notes, I am playing this unfinished game and I smile. It is not a happy smile but a resigned one. The world we live in will keep giving us games that are 6 months from being finished, reviewed by people bought by the industry (sometimes with so little: a copy of the game and a few weeks advance on playing it like most youtubers). People should really stop from preordering and buying unfinished games that need years to be made playable (civ V). I have all the Civs in my collection but this one, as I did with Civ V, will be bought when the game is finished. Until then the demo is ok, does not get updates before mods are ready (using about 10! mods the game is almost fun) and, most important, it does not support this kind of developers.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

There's no doubt that factories and power plants needed a nerf. They were so strong that even a dessert or tundra city with nothing going for it was good for a ton of hammers, and they were obtainable way too early. I think they went a little too far though. An alternate building that gave a hefty local hammer boost would be interesting. Either that or some other limitation like capping coverage at 3 instead of 1 or some similar nerf that preserved the city placement puzzle. That's just an initial reaction because I haven't had a chance to play since the update though. As it is I'm cautiously optimistic and encouraged by what I see. It might not address everything but it's a big step in the right direction. That and Jadwiga is cool

 

[Moriboe]

Hardly the most important point right now, but I hate these kind of natural wonder effects:

Giant's Causeway - 2 tiles
Land combat units that enter adjacent plots receive the ability 'Spear of Fionn' (+5 combat strength).

Lysefjord - 3 tiles
Naval combat units that enter adjacent plots are granted their next promotion.

It just encourages more pointless micro.

 

[RohirrimElf]

Hardly the most important point right now, but I hate these kind of natural wonder effects:

It just encourages more pointless micro.

Agreed. I hated these national wonders so much in civ 5.

 

[Human Crouton]

I played a couple of games last night. Still not fun. This game lost my interest while ago, and I'm starting to think that it may not even be in my periphery soon.

Their priorities on what to fix is so out of tune with what players want, and not having the developers acknowledge what the problems are and what they intend to work on makes it even more difficult because nobody wants to spend weeks or months making a mod if the developers might surprise patch what you spent all of your time modding to fix.

 

[Esperr]

I entirely agree that production dominates the game, but when placing your IZ, you can usually get +2 or +3 bonus relatively easily, from mines and quarries. This is a better production bonus than a Workshop, until industrialization, and It does speed up your build up considerably. It is not possible to get as much out of it if you are packing your cities ICS style for maximum overlap after industrialization. Geeting fresh water for housing is also an important consideration that was going against maximum packing.
I really don't have the same experience that "city placement didn't matter", actually in my experience it mattered a lot, as well as planing where to build districts, and I love that puzzle. And I'm not sure about this change because I think It will actually remove one of the aspects of that puzzle.

City placement is mostly irrelevant because you just needed as many as possible to spam as many factorys as possible to get as much overlap as possible. Who cares about fresh water placement? Your size 3 city still gets just as much bonus as a pop of ten from factorys. The only reason the production mattered so much before was because the costs are so high, they have now nerfed the only way to actually get a bearable amount of production while not reducing the costs. Im sitting late game in my current save and its just a giant slog, the whole game slows to a crawl.

I would also ask what districts? You build IZ, then commercial, then who cares? You get plenty of science incidentally from spam.How do you even have time for other stuff? Games are over by t150ish anyway.

 

[Athmos]

(...)

I would also ask what districts? You build IZ, then commercial, then who cares? You get plenty of science incidentally from spam.How do you even have time for other stuff? Games are over by t150ish anyway.

Well you were saying in your previous post that factories start to spring up around T120. If games are decided by turn 150, how can you say that the first 4/5th of a game don't matter ? until you get to factories - t120- overlap bonuses never mattered AT ALL since there aren't any.

 

[jollywonk]

City placement is mostly irrelevant because you just needed as many as possible to spam as many factorys as possible to get as much overlap as possible. Who cares about fresh water placement? Your size 3 city still gets just as much bonus as a pop of ten from factorys. The only reason the production mattered so much before was because the costs are so high, they have now nerfed the only way to actually get a bearable amount of production while not reducing the costs. Im sitting late game in my current save and its just a giant slog, the whole game slows to a crawl.

I'm not sure I understand...if you take a 10-pop city working mines and lumber mills and with an internal trade route or two, 50 base production is pretty easy, even before talking about encampments and industrial zones. Add a 50% policy modifier to that and you have 75 production. Online speed that means a tank takes 3.2 turns without doing anything crazy.

Later in the game building older units before unlocking new ones is another good way to go if you are production-starved. Use the 50% discount to upgrading units and I've really never had a problem making more units than my economy can financially support.

 

[nzcamel]

I'm not in any hurry. I read the patch, to me it's useless, so I'll look at it a bit later. I will simply not spend any money on the game or DLCs/expansions till/if they make a decent AI. Whatever they do in the meantime is just irrelevant to me, except the DLC being an indication they are not working to make the game enjoyable by me but to charge money from others.
I am not certain at all Firaxis is trying to provide a good product to those who want a challenge. I think they try to provide variety, and thus provide new content they can sell, while I'm looking for replayability and challenge without added content.

If there's no challenge in their flagship product they will lose a large chunk of their customer base. That isn't what any company wants. Which leads me to the logical conclusion that the fixes needed to AI isn't as straight forward as many would like. Which makes sense given that districts (like 1UPT before it) are harder to get the AI to understand as a human does.

I'm glad as they work on releasing fixes to the easier stuff, while working on the harder stuff. That they haven't fixed plenty of the UI that should be straight forward, suggests that resources are also tied up doing things we're yet to see.

 

[Gumbolt]

Fixed multiple crashes - I suspect this is probably the big fix here. How many crashes have they fixed?? I know many on here had major issues with games crashing. Having to declare on Ai to stop a crash. Also having issues with spies causing games to crash.

Any thoughts on this??

 

[Vladesch]

And still there is no sentry....
Wish I'd waited to buy this game.
Next time I will. Totally lost faith in Firaxis.